AWGSA Most Distinguished Paper Award

The inaugural AWGSA Most Distinguished Paper Award has been established to recognise and promote outstanding scholarship in the fields of Women’s and Gender Studies and related disciplines. The prize will be awarded biennially to the most distinguished peer-reviewed article published by an AWGSA member that innovatively engages with feminist paradigms.

Nominations for the 2017 AWGSA Best Paper Prize published in 2016 or 2017 are open now. The closing date is 1 May 2018.

The award will be announced and presented at the AWGSA biennial conference.

Eligibility Criteria

This paper prize is awarded to the most distinguished, feminist, published journal article in the period 2016-2017.

The prize is open to submissions by any AWGSA member.

Papers authored by AWGSA executive members can be nominated but the author/s cannot be part of the voting process.

Only one is permitted per applicant.

The article submitted by the applicant must be in English, have been published (and can include early view online) in the designated period.

The article must have a specific feminist focus.

Papers by multiple authors will be accepted when submitted by the first author. Where there is more than one author, all authors who are members of AWGSA will be recognised for the prize.

Symposia or parts of symposia, replies or rejoinders, notes and book reviews (but not review essays) are excluded from consideration.

Round 1: If 8 or less nominations are received then all panel members review all nominated papers and rank them in order from top (1) to bottom. If 9 or more nominations are received, the papers are divided equally among the panel members with extra papers to be reviewed by the chair of the panel. Each panel member reviews their allocated papers and ranks them in order from top (1) to bottom.

Round 2: All panel members review the papers ranked ‘1’ from Round 1, and rank them in order from top (1) to bottom.

Round 3: All panel members review the papers ranked ‘1’ in Round 2, choose their top 3, and place them in order ranked 1-3, providing brief comments to support their decision.

From the voting in Round 3, a winner is selected and the decision of the committee is communicated to the AWGSA Executive for ratification. The winner of the prize in then notified.